Smithicyathus lubliniensis Różkowska, 1980

Wrzołek, Tomasz, 2007, A revision of the Devonian rugosan phillipsastreid genus Smithicyathus, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 52 (3), pp. 609-632 : 626

Smithicyathus lubliniensis Różkowska, 1980

Fig. 11C .

1980 Smithicyathus lubliniensis sp. nov; Różkowska 1980: 19–20, pl. 1: 2, 3a–c.

1993 Phillipsastrea lacunosa lubliniensis ( Różkowska, 1980) ; Wrzołek 1993: 297, 300.

2003? Smithicyathus lubliniensis Różkowska, 1979 ; Fedorowski 2003: 113, 114, pl. 54: 3.

Emended diagnosis.—Massive (astreoid) Smithicyathus with very narrow dissepimentarium, of one horseshoe series, of two peripheral series of dissepiments, and with thin septa.

Discussion.—The material illustrated herein is derived most probably from the holotype of the species, collected and described by Różkowska (1980: 18, 19; pl. 3a–c), and thus both records (one set of measurements taken from the illustrations of Różkowska, 1980, another one from additional thin sections supplied from Poznań) in the database may in fact belong to the same colony. This material displays a massive habit, with occasional lacunae. Walls are pseudocerioid. Septa are locally thickened at the zone of horseshoe dissepiments, and there is a marked tendency towards septal degeneration at the corallite periphery. As was noted above, this material might be interpreted as a highly atypical S. smithi . Anyway in all appearance it must be closely related to the Holy Cross representatives of the latter species. Possibly if I were to find such a material in Panek or in Zgórsko I would not hesitate to include it into S. smithi .

The material studied comes from the dark marly limestone (intercalation?), suggesting deeper offshore origin of this sample, if not for the species S. lubliniensis Różkowska, 1980 .

Stratigraphic and geographic range.— Lublin subsurface Devonian (eastern Poland), Korczmin borehole, depth 1891 m; Upper Frasnian Modryń Formation, Zubowice Member ( Miłaczewski 1981: 21–24) .

Dubious species of Smithicyathus

Presented below are the three Siberian species, described by Spasskiy and Kravtsov (in Besprozvannykh et al. 1975), and illustrated by a single colony each. Due to scarcity of material and insufficient clarity of illustrations, but also due to paleogeographic if not stratigraphic isolation of these species, their taxonomic position must remain dubious, until more material and better illustrations become available.

Figures

Fig. 11. Upper Frasnian massive material of Smithicyathus from the Holy Cross Mountains (A, B) and the Lublin area (eastern Poland) subsurface (C). A, B. Smithicyathus cf. smithi (Różkowska, 1953) with relatively thin septa. A. Panek quarry, set B, GIUS 384P101, with larger corallites and better development of horseshoe dissepiments (A1 transverse, A2 longitudinal section).B. Zgórsko quarry, GIUS 382ZS 05, with small corallites, carinated septa and relatively scarce horseshoe dissepiments (B1 transverse, B2 longitudinal section). C. Smithicyathus lubliniensis Różkowska, 1980, possibly cut from the holotype of the species, Korczmin borehole, depth 1891 m, UAM material marked as Korczmin 1891A, from collection of Różkowska (1980), with narrow zone of septal expansion, marked intercorallite non−cerioid walls and with narrow dissepimentaria, (C1 transverse, C2 longitudinal section). Scale bar 4 mm for all items.